Their Stories
by IcaWolf
Summary: This is like a sequal for The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick. It's got the new Ryter (previously known as Spaz) telling all these people to "tell their stories". So, basically, new characters talking about their adventures.
1. Shadow

Disclaimer- the whole idea of the latches and Ryter and all that belong to Rodman Philbrick, but the new characters and this particular story belong to me.  
  
A/N- You really have to have read The Last Book In the Universe to understand this cuz there are so many terms and names and stuff that nobody could ever possibly understand without reading The Last Book In the Universe first. Sorry.  
  
1 MY NAME IS SHADOW  
  
I don't know why I'm doing this. I think it's stupid. It was Ryter's idea. See, he started this book (I know, it's crazy, isn't it?) and after he finished it, he decided his friends should all be in it too. Not just be in it, but write in it. It's stupid, because none of us can read (I'm speaking into one of those machines that type what you speak into it), so why bother? Nobody around here can read, and I don't expect anyone will ever read. Not with mindprobes. Ryter got it from the old Ryter, who died. See, this Ryter, the one who got us to write in this, he used to be called Spaz, because of his spazes (he calls it epilepsy but everyone knows it's just the spaz). So after the old Ryter got killed by The Mob, Spaz decided to write the book, and soon people started calling him Ryter, instead of Spaz.  
  
Anyways.  
  
What Ryter wants me to write about is- I don't know, my life I guess. He just said "Tell your story." and gave me the machine. Pretty zoomed, if you ask me. But here I am. So. My "story". It satrts, I guess when I ws born. My mother was one of Vida Bleek's assasins. I don't know what happened to my father. I've never seen him and I don't really want to. I would be an assasin, too, if Lotti Getts and her Vandals hadn't come. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The main point is that I grew up around a bunch of pitiless murderers.  
  
Not that I was all alone. There was one other kid my age. A boy named Weasel. We grew up like brother and sister. We practically were. I loved him. Not in that way. We were never luvmates; I can't imagine being his luvmate. But I loved him. I thought I might cut my own red if he died. Guess I was wrong.  
  
Me and Weasel talked a lot about what we would do when we got older. We didn't have a problem with becoming assasins, not really. It's just, we kind of wanted to do something else. I'm not sure what. When we talked about it, I remember, we could never find a reason for not becoming assasins, but we both agreed that there was something else.  
  
Finally, we reached the decision that we would run away. Not just to a different part of Lotti Getts' territory, but another latch altogether. We planned everything; what night we would do it, what time we would go (midnight). We knew we wouldn't have a problem getting away unseen, for we were the children of assasins, and assasins are the best at becoming invisible. We were just worried that once we had gotten away, Vida Bleek would come looking for us. Still, we were willing to take the risk.  
  
Finally, on the day before the set night, we were getting all geared up, ready to go, when Lotti Getts and her Vandals come roaring in on their jetbikes. I was about to run back inside, but Weasel grabbed my hand and shouted above the noise, "This is the perfect time to make our get-away. Come on!" and he started fighting his way through the mob of fighting people. I followed him a bit unsure, but he was stolid as ever, and just kept forcing his way through, so I made sure I didn't lose him.  
  
All of a sudden there was a roar and a jetbike loomed in front of us. It was tearing through the crowd, and riding it was none other than Lotti Getts, Queen of the Vandals. I was paralyzed with fear, but Weasel immedietly threw himself sideways into me. I hit the ground hard with a cry, and rolled over. I lay there for a couple of seconds, to get over the shock, but after a while I became aware that I was in danger of being trampled, so I got up painfully and looked around.  
  
"Weasel!" I shouted. I started to wander through the battle, trying to find him. "Weasel! Where are you!" Suddenly something hit me very hard. I stumbled backward, looking to see what it was that had bumped into me. At the ground I saw something that made the color drain from my face. A bloody, mangled corpse. It was Weasel.  
  
He was dead. When I saw his body, I have to admit I kind of spazed (not like what Ryter has). No, I really spazed. I just started screaming and screaming. Although I don't remember running away, I must have, because the next thing I do remember is me being outside with cold rain running down my face. I think I was still screaming, because an old gummy came up and said in this very soothing voice, "Come on now, child. Come with me, Ryter, it's okay." Okay? My best friend, my brother, the only person I could ever talk to, ever relate to, was dead. What was I going to do? There was nothing I could do except for let myself be led away by this old man.  
  
He led me to where a boy, maybe one or two years older than me (this was Ryter, or Spaz, at that point) was standing. Spaz joined him and the three of us walked off to where a takvee was waiting. There were already two others in there, a little boy of about five, and a beautiful proov girl. I was too stunned to think about the oddness at the moment, though. I just sat down on the seat and stared into nothingness. 


	2. Sandpaper

Disclaimer- the whole idea of the latches and Ryter and all that belong to Rodman Philbrick, but the new characters and this particular story belong to me.  
  
A/N- You really have to have read The Last Book In the Universe to understand this cuz there are so many terms and names and stuff that nobody could ever possibly understand without reading The Last Book In the Universe first. Sorry.  
  
  
  
1 MY NAME IS SANDPAPER  
  
Kind of a weird name, I know. Sometimes people just call me Sand girl. It because of my asthma, everybody says it sound like sandpaper when I cough. And this may be stupid, but I think what Ryter's having us all do is kind of cool. I mean, I know Shadow thinks it's stupid (can you believe what she wrote up there!) and the rest have this attitude like they're just doing it to humour Ryter, as though they think he's zoomed. I don't think he's zoomed at all. Neither does Mouse, but then again, she loves everybody, so what's the difference? But I think this was a great idea. Even if nobody will read it for a while.  
  
So, anyways, my story. I've lived in Lotti Getts' latch all my life. In fact, I don't really feel the need to go anywhere else. Not like Shadow, who can't seem to stay in one area for more than a day. No, me, I like to stay in one place. And despite everything, where I live right now feels like my home, I feel safe, even with Lotti Getts' Vandals crashing all over the place on their jetbikes and Vida Bleek's cold, deadly assasins (actually, never mind, Lotti killed almost all of them). But still, as crazy and totally zoomed as it may sound, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Well, maybe Eden, but that doesn't really count, because everybody wants to live in Eden.  
  
Besides living here with Lotti Getts as latchboss, I've also been an orphan all my life. I have no idea who my parents were, they left me when I was just a baby. I'm not sure how I survived but now and then I have these strange whisps of memories of a man and woman, and though I'm quite sure they weren't my parents (don't ask me why I'm sure because I really have no idea), I can't remeber anything else about them. But they must have left me, or I must have left them, when I was about three or four, because that is when I can remember living on the streets. I never had a stackbox or anything, I just sort of wandered around, begging and stealing when I could. It wasn't that difficult, since nobody was really any better off. The only thing that made it hard was my asthma. If someone caught me ripping them off or something, I would have to run, and more often than not that would bring on an asthma attack.  
  
Finally, when I was around, six or seven (I don't really know when I was born; no one does, but I know I'm somewhere around eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, something like that) I was ripping this man off and he saw me, so I had to run, but I had a really bad asthma attack. The man caught me, but it turned out he was something of a healer, so he took me back to his home, this little apparetement thing, and he examined me and told me I had asthma, and said he was very dissapointed that I hadn't got proper treatment yet when I told him I had had the sand cough for as long as I could remember. When he said this I asked him how was I supposed to get anything when I didn't even know what this "asthma" was called before now. So he went out and didn't come back till the evening. He tossed me this little thing looked like a bent pipe and told me it was an inhaler and that if I went to Traderville I could find the proper medicine for it and then he handed me a little bag with some powder inside. He explained how to use the inhaler with the medicine and showed me.  
  
That doctor saved my life, because I heard that sometimes, when you don't have an inhaler and you have an attack, you can die from lack of air. When I left I was thanking him over and over again. I also gave him back his stuff, which he thanked me kind of stiffly for. As you can imagine, I mean, I was ripping him off. 


	3. Spike

Disclaimer- the whole idea of the latches and Ryter and all that belong to Rodman Philbrick, but the new characters and this particular story belong to me.  
  
A/N- You really have to have read The Last Book In the Universe to understand this cuz there are so many terms and names and stuff that nobody could ever possibly understand without reading The Last Book In the Universe first. Sorry.  
  
1 MY NAME IS SPIKE  
  
They call me that because of my spikey hair. I think. And although I think what Ryter's having us do is a little weird, I don't think it's too hard. I think I might have a pretty good story. I mean, I hope I have a good story, because I wouldn't want to be just writing on and on and on and on and have you be snoring.  
  
Ok, so to start my story I'd like to tell you a bit about myself. I am a twelve year old boy and I live in a stackbox in a latch run by Billy Bizmo. No, that's not really true, I don't live in a stackbox. I just wish I did. Or do I? Mayb I wish I lived in the Crypts, with my twin sister Spy. She's with the Bully Bangers, see. Me, I'm not really sure I want to be with the Bully Bangers. I mean, it makes sense, to be down with the Bangers, because it makes your life a hell of a lot safer, I can tell you that much. But I don't know, there's something about the Bully Bangers that I don't like. Spy's been witht them ever since our parents deserted us to go live in some other latch. That was when we were eight, when Spy's name was Teardrop. We sort of wandered around for a couple of weeks, then came across couple of the Bangers, and Tear, whose name could have been Sly, started talking with them and sounding all sweet and cute and smart and I just sort of nodded and smiled, and then, as amazing as it is, they took us to Billy Bizmo. Tear did the same charade in front of him and he said, sure, we could be with the Bully Bangers. He sent us out to rip a lot of people off and stuff, and Tear was great. She was just as sly when it came to ripping people off as when it came to persuading people to do things for her. So they began to call her Spy, after a while, and the name just sort of stuck.  
  
I didn't do so well. If it wasn't for Spy, they probably would have killed me. Although I was fast, my nerve always failed me when I heard someone coming and I would run away, and when I did manage to steal something it was never very good. I slowly began to realize that I was not meant to be a thief. When I told Spy about this, she begged and pleaded and even tried using her charm on me to get me to stay. I might have, too, if I hadn't failed so miserably that day and been beaten by the Bangers. I was done. I wasn't going to stay in this latch anymore, I would find a new latch.  
  
So I did. I ran away. Between the latches.  
  
Are you making the connection yet? Because I became a latch runner. I had always had a good memory, and like I said before, I was very fast. So I decided the best job for me was to become a latch runner. I made good money, too. That's how I met Ryter. I was delivering a message from Eden, and Billy Bizmo came, and, you know, besides being an illegal latch runner this was Billy Bizmo, whose latch I had run away from. I was trapped, and Ryter told me to hide under his foam (mattress) in the corner, so I did and Billy Bizmo never found me. I got a shock, though. This is what I heard:  
  
Billy Bizmo: You know Spaz-  
  
Ryter: My name isn't Spaz anymore. It's Ryter.  
  
BB: Fine. Ryter then. But you do know that at some point I'm going to retire.  
  
R: Great for you.  
  
BB: Yah. But when that happens, I'm going to need somone else to run the Bully Bangers...  
  
R: No.  
  
BB: You haven't even heard my proposal.  
  
R: No. I already told you, I want nothing to do with you or your stupid Bangers.  
  
BB: Look, Spaz-  
  
R: Ryter.  
  
BB: Ryter. You're my son. I know you'd make a great latchboss-  
  
R: How many times do I have to say it! Do you need a mind-probe or something to get the message across to you! I don't want to be like you! I don't want ANYTHING to do with you! I am NOT your son!  
  
BB: Spaz, you ARE my son, and you know it. Please, after all I've done for you-  
  
R: All you've done for me? Like leaving me as a baby-  
  
BB: I was a latchboss, I couldn't have brought you up like that, not with your mother dead.  
  
R: -like refusing to let me see Bean? No way, I will never become the new latchboss.  
  
BB: So is this what it's all about? Your sister! Spaz, or Ryter, or whatever you call yourself, she's not even your blood, you don't have a real sister.  
  
R: Bean is my sister, whether she's blood or not. She's a real-er sister than you are a father.  
  
BB: Son..  
  
R: Don't "son" me. I'm through with you. Now get out.  
  
And then Billy Bizmo left. Ryter was breathing heavily, looking after him with narrowed eyes. I got up cautiously and was about to leave when he said, "No, wait. What's your name?" I told him and he said, "How would you like to help me?" So I did. 


End file.
